The Only Place

April 24, 2007

A slice of old Bangalore where you are likely to see church-goers gather for lunch after their Sunday mass, The Only Place, has moved from its Mota Royal Arcade, Brigade Road location to an outdoorsy area in Museum Road.This continental restaurant is well know for its steaks and apple pie, but also serves sizzlers, pastas, bakes, sandwiches, burgers and salads.

The restaurant is located in a courtyard-type area covered by a Mangalore-tiled roof.Red and white checked tablecloths on the wooden tables emphasize the country atmosphere.Lanterns hanging from the roof and decorative fairy lights give a festive, picnic look.The tables are well spaced and the corners have wooden benches instead of chairs.

While The Only Place does serve vegetarian food, the real deal here is the meats and cuts.The specials of the day are written on a blackboard when you enter the restaurant.For starters we ordered the spicy steak medallions.This consisted of about eight juicy, well done cutlet-size steak pieces marinated with peppers and grilled with a side of French fries.The Greek salad in vinaigrette dressing consisting of lettuce, peppers, onions, olives and feta was good.All this was washed down with a cold bottle of Kingfisher beer which is the only alcohol they serve.

For the main course, we ordered the Chateaubriand Supreme, cooked medium-rare.The Chateaubriand is a type of tenderloin steak that supposedly originates from the Napolean era.It is seasoned with pepper and grilled with pieces of fat (butter or bacon usually) so that it retains its moistness.The Only Place delivered on that promise – the Chateaubriand steak was moist, succulent and delicious – truly a treat for meat lovers.In fact, I think it was the best steak I had in Bangalore.The steaks in this restaurant are served with sides of creamed potatoes, vegetables and garlic bread.You can also customize your plate at an extra cost by adding on pepper or barbeque sauce or jacket potatoes with butter or sour cream (highly recommended).

Dessert options consisted of apple or peach pie, blueberry cheesecake, chocolate tri-layer cake or trifle pudding.I decided to stick to tradition and ordered the apple pie. It was yummy – warm and delicious with the vanilla ice-cream providing the right amount of coolness!

Service is passable – there seem to be a few very knowledgeable old-timers – but there also seem to be an unnecessarily large number of waiters who seem to be just hanging out.Service was efficient but they screwed up two things in our order – they forgot to get us the garlic bread and got me the apple pie with ice-cream although I ordered it with cream (I am not complaining about that – it was still awesome).

The Only Place is located on Museum Road.Parking is available at the parking lot in Raheja Chambers next door.The restaurant is very popular with expats as well the Cantonment crowd and seems to have a lot of regulars frequenting it.Go there if you are a meat lover and when you don’t want to count your calories.It is ideal for a casual dinner with family and friends.